J.R.: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of 1000 Gurus with me, your host, jr Yonacruz. Today's guest is Lindsay Nellison. Lindsay is a personal finance educator, marketing professional, wife and mom to a one-year-old son. She started her money coaching business at the age of 26 and has helped thousands of young adults become more confident with their money. It is a lazy Sunday today and this actually was recorded yesterday, so it was a fast turnaround.

J.R.: 0:25

I know I say this all the time. This was easily one of my top favorite episodes of all time. I know it's probably recency bias each time, but I say that this time because one Lindsay and I go way back to 2016 when we used to be co-workers and she's one of the only people that I can nerd out with about money. But we also have very similar interests of being career-focused, we both like personal finance, we're into fitness and nutrition and we have our shared Christian faith, and we haven't chatted for a few years since, I think, her wedding back in 2021. So this was a partial catch-up session.

J.R.: 0:56

Second is because Lindsay is also a great communicator, as you'll find out from this episode. She's very good at synthesizing a lot of valuable information, like on personal finance, into bite-sized and digestible chunks, which makes her a top-tier guest for digging into important topics with very actionable takeaways. We talk about her overall career journey from marketing to finance, double majoring at UCI, entrepreneurship, ai, software, online video courses, technical strategies on personal finance, like budgeting or why neither of us actually do strict budgeting and the surefire way to have a 100k net worth in your 20s. I love this conversation and hopefully we'll be able to do a part two someday. So, without further ado, hope you enjoyed this episode with Lindsay Nelson. Hello everyone and welcome back to 1000 Gurus. Lindsay, welcome to the show.

Lindsey: 1:47

Thanks for having me, Marlo. Yeah, thanks for being here. Do you go by?

J.R.: 1:50

Marlo on the show or do you go by JR? I go by everything. You know I've had Clark on the show and Ollie on the show, so they both called me Marlo and I'm like disclaimer to my audience I usually go by JR, but I also go by Marlo. So yeah, thank you for being here, lindsay. Here, lindsay, I will say since I started the podcast, you have been a coveted guest I've wanted to have on the show because I've always wanted to talk about money and obviously you're a money expert, and so I've had random episodes where my friends and I will talk about finance and money. But it's, I know what I'm saying, but it'd be nice to be like this person literally teaches finance, even if we have like similar, I guess, knowledge or similar implementations of money. It's always nice to get someone like a guest, and I think I explained this off camera. It's the nice thing about having guests is I can say everything that I've learned from books and people. But it's nice to be like this is what other people say, so you should listen to them. The whole profit is not welcome in their own home, sort of thing. Anyways, that's side tangent. So again, thank you for being here, lindsay. I'll go into how I know you real quick.

J.R.: 2:48

So we met in 2016. Let me know if I'm getting any of this wrong. I kind of just going into the archives of my brain. We both worked at Casepeer, which is a software for legal firms. We slowly became friends. We played Secret Hitler during lunch and other board games, and we've done escape rooms together. You also went to UCI. You double majored in business, admin and social psychology, yeah, and we also had virtual chats during the pandemic. You invited us to your wedding, which is super fun, you and Nate, and you also did financial coaching for a number of years and you recently had a baby. I feel like we met in, like it must have been, when did you start at Casepeer?

Lindsey: 3:28

I started at Casepeer in 2016.

J.R.: 3:29

So it must have been late 2016.

Lindsey: 3:30

Yeah, it must have been that time.

J.R.: 3:31

Yeah, because I know, I know yeah, I joined Bergen Mrojovsky, their firm, in like 2014. And then two years after that, I was going to join Casepeer, so it's probably like 2016. It's probably late 2016.

Lindsey: 3:42

Yeah, case spirit like just started oh my gosh, I think I was the first like non-dev employee really I think so.

J.R.: 3:48

How did you find out about the job you just applied online, or did you know someone?

Lindsey: 3:52

yeah, it was like the uci job board and I was just like applying for. I think I must have applied to like at least 50 or 100 jobs my senior year of college and it was an internship position. I honestly don't know why I applied for the internship position because I already had a job, but that's how I found out about it. And then they were like we can beat your current job right. And I was like, cool, do both jobs.

J.R.: 4:15

Nice. Well, it seems like it worked out, I guess.

J.R.: 4:19

It did, yeah, cool. So I'll do an overview of the topics that we have, but, as I've mentioned and listeners of the show will know that, we go off the cuff sometimes. Main topics first one your origin story, just to humanize you a bit, life aspirations, career journey. Second topic money, personal finance exactly what I wanted you on the show. And then topic three if we get to this point personal life, marriage, health, kids, other things that you've mentioned, you wanted to talk about or interested in talking about. Hopefully we'll get into there because I think there's a lot of good stuff there. Intro topics life updates. So yes, as we mentioned, you recently became a mother. I'm curious how has motherhood been? And I imagine it's been a huge change in your life, I mean that's an understatement, Right.

Lindsey: 5:02

At first, honestly, it was really hard, Like I had an emergency C-section and then I had like pretty bad postpartum depression and anxiety. So it was like a really hard first couple months and I don't think anybody tells you this, but like for two months I didn't sleep more than three hours straight per day at all ever.

J.R.: 5:28

And nobody tells you like how, what?

Lindsey: 5:29

that's because of the postpartum. No, because the baby wakes up because the baby got you because the baby wakes up and you have to feed him or whatever help him get back to sleep and I had no idea whatever babies need.

Lindsey: 5:40

I had no idea that, like I knew there was going to be sleep deprivation, but I didn't know that, like the first couple of weeks of a baby's life, you have to feed them every two hours, but it takes them like an hour to eat, so you're up in like another hour. It's insane, marlo. I had no idea, so that was really hard, but other than that it's been just awesome. Like it's way better than I thought it would be.

J.R.: 6:04

Nice, I'm glad to hear, I'm glad to hear everything turned out okay. It's funny because my mom, for all of my mom's three kids, they were all C-sections, like we're all C-section babies. And it was funny because the first two were like okay, yeah, you need to C-section. And then by the third one, my little brother, my mom's like you know what, just cut me open again, like I'm used to it.

Lindsey: 6:24

At this point we're like, okay, sure, why not Only way to do it at that point, I guess?

J.R.: 6:30

Yeah, she's like this is the only way I'm used to, so might as well just do that Cool. And then I wanted to ask so what else have you been up to?

Lindsey: 6:50

I know anymore. I'm trying to get off social media, but it's kind of weird. When you have a podcast, what else you been up to Working? The last time we talked, we talked about my then new job that I've now been at for like four years, so that's been incredible Best job. No offense, I met you at Case Pier, which was great, but this job is so much sorry, case Pier, but like this job is just so much better I really like it, like having better jobs yeah, oh, and I moved back to irvine because I was in the inland empire for a while, which you know, but your listeners don't.

Lindsey: 7:14

your listeners don't know anything about me. Hi, everyone, not yet. But yeah, so I was in, like san bernardino, loma, linda, for three years while my husband was working there, and then we moved back to Irvine and now he's working at UCI and we bought a house during that time, like, we had a five-week-old and we bought a house and it was insane because we also had to fix up the house and we had to move with the baby.

J.R.: 7:40

So, yeah, it's been a lot of change all at once, but we're settling in now, which is great, yeah, so how do you like it being back in Irvine?

Lindsey: 7:51

So much better. It's so much better.

J.R.: 7:54

Yeah, I definitely want to move back to Irvine eventually.

Lindsey: 7:57

Where are you right now, irvine's?

J.R.: 7:58

super nice. I'm in Cerritos. Do you know that area? I'm like up to 605.

Lindsey: 8:02

Well, Cerritos Auto Square.

J.R.: 8:03

Yeah, and Cerritos Mall. It's a nice in-between because I'm going to UCLA constantly for dance practice and so coming from Irvine originally was insane Like it's an hour at midnight for traffic, but during the day it's two hours easily, so I'm like all right. Well, I now like this area too, but I think Irvine eventually is my goal. It's so nice. Let's go into your origin story life aspirations, career journey. So, lindsay, where did you grow up and what were your main influences you want to give?

Lindsey: 8:36

us like the TLDR. I grew up in this small town called Claremont. It's about 35 miles east of Los Angeles. It's a college town and influences my parents. I feel like most people, their parents influenced them, definitely a big influence, and, just like the people around me, the culture at the time, If we want to connect the dots, fast forward.

J.R.: 9:00

What were your career aspirations or, I guess, life aspirations when you were growing up, leading to UCI, and then your career after that?

Lindsey: 9:07

I never really I knew that I wanted to be successful in a career and I knew that I wanted to like my job, but those were. And I wanted to make good money, but those were really the only things that I thought of, and so I was always trying to. I was always taking personality tests oh, what career should I do? Whatever. But now that I now I kind of feel like I've arrived, like I make good money, I'm happy in my job and, yeah, Is that why I forgot the question already. Career aspirations.

J.R.: 9:38

Yeah, and I think the spirit of the question is like for people who, whatever stage they're at in their life, it's just hearing about how other people arrived and you're saying that you really only had a few things, which is I want to make good money, I want to enjoy my work, etc.

Lindsey: 9:53

And so that was kind of like your guiding I don't know values principle yeah, I mean, obviously it got more refined over time because I started working and I figured out what I didn't like and it just kind of ballooned from there. I think the craziest thing that happened was I started out at Casepeer. I worked in marketing. Right, I tried to make a career switch into recruiting because I did so much research. I talked to a career coach, all these things, and I was like recruiting is what I was meant to do, it's what I'm going to do. That was in October 2019 or somewhere around there, and, of course, covid happened. A couple months later.

Lindsey: 10:32

The recruiting industry imploded, my company imploded. So many branches closed down. I got laid off, most of my team got laid off, and so I was like well, what am I supposed to do now? This was supposed to be the career that I was going to do, and so what am I going to do? So I'm like do I go back to marketing? Do I try recruiting again?

Lindsey: 10:55

And long story semi short. I started my own business, which I had wanted to do for a long time, but I decided that I was going to become a financial coach, which is like teaching people about finances. It's not a financial advisor that manages money for you because you've got to be licensed to do that told people I was doing it. And then I got clients and I started making money from it and it was so crazy it wasn't a lot of money, but it was like something and I was able to help people and it was so awesome.

Lindsey: 11:35

And so on my LinkedIn, I like changed my industry to finance and then about a year into that, I started to get really lonely and I had just gotten married and I had just moved to a new area where I knew one other person and I was like I'm lonely, I want to start working again. As soon as I changed my status on LinkedIn to open to work, I got this message from this recruiter that was like hey, do you want to work for this finance company in Boston? And I was like, okay, so I ended up getting the job. That's where I work now and it's just the best. And I just can't believe that, like me, just saying that I've worked in finance because I said I wanted to led to me getting an actual job in finance.

J.R.: 12:21

Yeah, that's crazy. What is like the overall thing you do and what makes it such a great job in your opinion?

Lindsey: 12:28

Yeah, so I help financial advisors with their marketing. So I still use my marketing background, but most of my job is talking to people. Now. Which is something I didn't like about previous jobs was that like I was doing a lot of writing or I was doing a lot of social media, which made me feel icky, just because social media makes me feel really anxious, and but now I'm just like talking to people about marketing or I do some like light tech support of like our marketing tools. So, and then I do a little bit of sales as well, but very like low pressure situation and I love it because I feel like I'm really able to help these people. I love talking to them. They're people Our clients are like the nicest people ever.

Lindsey: 13:15

Like I've had somebody yell at me two times and both times they've apologized to me afterwards. They're so nice, afterwards they're so nice and so anyway. So it's like customer service sales, and then I also do some project management. So I like that. I have a lot of variety. But I also really like working remotely, which I thought I would hate, but I like it because I don't need to pretend like I'm working if I'm not. That's like the thing I hate most about working in an office is, if I don't have something to do like I can work on something else Like I can do a load of laundry or whatever.

Lindsey: 13:49

I can go to the gym during lunch, so that's what I like about my job. Oh, and my boss is amazing and all my co-workers are awesome.

J.R.: 13:57

Yeah, those are always good pluses, right, and I like that point you make because it's they're trying to keep you there for x amount of hours. But it's just because I'm sitting here for eight hours doesn't mean I'm producing value. For eight hours I can still deliver the value that you expected me, but not have to be there, and that's why I also, I agree I like remote work as well, though of course people do like working in the office for those various reasons of talking to people or having that environment. Even for me, like I'll come into, I don't need to, but maybe like once every three to six months just to get free snacks and if our team is meeting up. But otherwise I'm like, yeah, I can go to the gym during lunch, I can go grocery shopping and all this other stuff. So it's pretty nice.

Lindsey: 14:37

Yeah, and I love working East Coast hours too. I work 6am to 3pm.

J.R.: 14:41

It is incredible.

Lindsey: 14:43

I don't mind waking up early, I'm a perky morning person. Anyway, my first meeting's at 6.30 am. I'm off by three. I get to hang out with my kid. It's great.

J.R.: 14:53

So I guess you already went over your career journey. How did you decide your major going into UCI and I know you were saying that you found this job through Case Spear and then these other kind of career pivots based on your journey, just circumstance? What was that deciding factor going into college?

Lindsey: 15:12

So funny story. I was actually just thinking about this today. I entered UCI as a psychology major major and when I was applying to college I don't know why, but for that maybe six-month period I was like I'm going to become a psychology professor. I had never taken a psychology class in my life. I had read some psychology books because I'm a nerd like that. That's just what I thought I wanted to do.

Lindsey: 15:37

And then when I got into the school and started registering for my classes, I was like, oh, can I switch to a business major? And they were like oh, no, that's really hard. And I was like, well, what do I need to do? And they were like well, you got to take these classes and you got to get good grades, but there's no guarantee. And I was like, okay, I'm taking the classes and I'm going to get a 4.0. And so I got pretty close to that and I took all the classes and then I ended up as a business major.

Lindsey: 16:06

The reason that I knew I wanted to be a business major and not just stick with psych is because I was offered an internship at NASA my freshman year and then they found out that I wasn't, that I was a psychology major and not like engineering or business. And they were like, sorry, we can't offer you the job because you're not the right major. And I was like that is so freaking stupid. I'm going to go get that major now. So I never ended up interning in NASA, but that's kind of the reason why I was so stubborn about it.

J.R.: 16:39

I want to jump into your decision to become an entrepreneur, and then something you mentioned was several failed businesses before making money through social media. Could you walk us through that journey and maybe what key elements helped get you there?

Lindsey: 16:53

Yeah, well, I think the reason that I succeeded that time was because I had I knew what didn't work from before. So I had tried, like right after I graduated college, I tried starting a blog on getting into a UC because I had worked in admissions during college and like bought some domain names because our boss like just was always buying domain names and so I thought that was like a thing you did to invest, which is so dumb. And then you and I even tried starting something.

J.R.: 17:25

It like wrote a couple, couple blog posts, maybe the comedy health one yeah that's such, still, such a good idea it's still such a funny idea it's still. Yeah, I still like the idea. I just we know we didn't, we weren't able to put time into it, but I still like it oh my gosh, now with ai we could do it so quickly and easily.

Lindsey: 17:43

We could just have ChatGPT write our funny stuff.

J.R.: 17:46

It's trust me. I am deep in the rabbit hole with AI software, so I have things in the pipeline actually.

Lindsey: 17:53

just on that note, I can't wait to see it.

J.R.: 17:56

Yeah, I mean so it's not funny or satirical, but it's just like these different business things and just learning, ai, software and automation that I'm very interested in, especially with starting my own businesses and these little projects that I'm doing. But, yeah, no, it's super exciting. Anyways, sorry, go ahead.

Lindsey: 18:16

Yeah, no, okay. But on that tangent, though, you know what I've been seeing a lot of that. I'm like I totally could have done this, like back in the day on Pinterest. It'll have these recipes, because I use Pinterest a lot for recipes I have for years. There are these recipes that are very clearly AI generated and you know how, on recipes, they'll tell their whole life story and then they'll have a picture of themselves and be like hey, I'm Camilla and I like food and whatever, and I keep seeing these are all AI generated. There's a picture of a person that is clearly AI generated, that has like a fake story, and I'm like this is such easy money.

J.R.: 18:48

Yeah, actually one of the one of the programs that I'm looking at. It kind of walks you through how to do like a PDF business where it is creating content through ChatGPT and, like Canva and these other softwares, integrate them together, have like a turnkey website builder thing, and then you just run meta ads and then you sell this digital product and I'm like, okay, there's a low price point. I do want to learn these skills and even if it doesn't get anywhere, it's something I'm interested in. But it was only like 20 bucks. So I'm like, okay, sure, let me see how this works. And a lot of it is like use three or four different AI programs to do these things, put it together and then just run ads and you make money while you sleep. And I'm like, okay, I'm digging it. So I'm more than halfway through it now and it's very interesting.

Lindsey: 19:33

So it's a course you're taking to learn about how to do that.

J.R.: 19:35

Yeah, it's a course, so you pay there's like a $20 one, and then, of course, this premium. What's annoying? I'll give you the TLDR, but the annoying part is like the first three videos is basically a sales pitch to upsell you on the premium course. And I'm like, go screw yourself. I just want to learn the thing that you told me I'm going to learn in the basic. And now I'm going through the course. I'm like, okay, in the premium upsell package they give you these templates. I'm like, okay, I can see the value of those now because it's made for you. And then, but here's how to connect everything. Otherwise, you can do your own research and make your own templates yourself or your own PDFs or whatever. But I'm like, okay, let me go through this first, see if I can do it my own, and then if I want to upgrade to the premium course. I think it's worth the money if it works out, but like proof of concept, right. But yes, now we're on money and entrepreneurship.

Lindsey: 20:23

But yeah, I think that's like the future, right because I took a course from Danielle Leslie which is weird that I had just gotten a YouTube ad for her. And then she was like, oh, come to my webinar. Blah, blah, blah and I never buy anything from those stupid webinars. But then I woke up in the middle of the night that night and I was like I have to get this course. I don't know why, but I'm just going to try it. And then it ended up not only changing my life but so many other people that I coached and followed, like.

Lindsey: 21:06

I remember I had this one client who was like, yeah, I have a family of. She had four other siblings, or five other siblings maybe, and she's like nobody in my family knows how to do this, nobody knows how to invest. And you taught me to invest and it's so easy. I'm teaching all of my sisters and all my brothers how to do it. And you just changed my family's trajectory. And oh, I had this other student who similar, he like grew up kind of poor and now he lives in a duplex. So he like lives on the top floor and then rents out the bottom and he's like investing like so much money and it's just so cool. My students are doing better than me.

J.R.: 21:48

Nice. We like to hear it. That's how I know you're adding value. Nowadays there's so many courses out there. How do you, for people who are interested in business and money, just say it loud into your phone and eventually you'll get an ad for something. So my question to you is how do people sort the signal from the noise in terms of these money making, business endeavors or people just like? I made eight, nine figures and let me show you how to do it, but it's basically a video course on showing you how to make your own video course. So sometimes obviously there's good value there, but sometimes there's a lot of people just muddying the pool with their scam content. How do you approach weeding out good information from bad information?

Lindsey: 22:32

The thing is that was in 2020 that I bought that course, and so I feel like there was a little less noise during that time. But sorting through the weeds today, I feel like, generally, if you follow that person on parents in a video course, it was a video course and it was on kajabi, which I'm sure you're familiar yeah and well.

J.R.: 23:16

The video course was on baby sleep, but it was hosted on kajabi and I was like ah, she's one of those yeah and yeah, but it was like a hundred dollars, so I don't think it was a bad use of money, but the question I have for you is yeah is like now with even before 2020, there's YouTube, there's Google, now we have chat, gpt and all these places For information.

J.R.: 23:41

You could probably find a lot of the same information on other topics on YouTube. People just have their niche content channel and it adds huge value. Like I was looking up how to do tax accounting for solo businesses, just to check all my boxes to make sure I know everything and I have a background in accounting professionally. But just as a refresher, I'm like, okay, this all makes sense, but this is like quality free videos from these YouTube channels, like several of them, and so it's always so interesting how people can make so much money from these courses when information is so free. But, of course, if you have a good sales page and ad and landing page and everything, you can make an argument to have someone buy that course if you show enough value. But I'm just curious if you had any thoughts on that.

Lindsey: 24:27

Yes, I do so.

Lindsey: 24:28

I think that's exactly the problem with the internet, and why courses are needed now is because there's so much information on the internet.

Lindsey: 24:38

It's really hard to sift through it and figure out, like what's right and wrong, which one you want to follow, whatever the thing with a course and it depends on the subject matter but, for example, like an investing course, right, I spent probably I spent maybe four years well, three years of research before I was able to figure out how to invest effectively, and I spent so many hours like forums and books and audio books and all these different things like trying to figure out, like how to make money in the stock market. And then, once I figured it out, I was like this is so easy. So then I made my own course and my course is like okay, yeah, you can find all this information because I did, but it's like you'll get there faster if you take the course, and I think that's the value that a lot of courses can bring if they're done well. That being said, there's a lot that aren't, and you can always do your own research, but I think courses save you more time overall, and in today's economy, time is money.

J.R.: 25:46

So the value is from putting together a class right Like funneling the right, curated information in the most effective, digestible way, and that's where you get your money's worth and value out of that, as opposed to trying to swim into the ocean of YouTube or Google and like trying to figure out and get what you need.

Lindsey: 26:06

Yeah, yeah, and I think too, like when you commit to a course, another piece of the value is like you've put money into it, so you want to get the information more. You're like more motivated too, so there's some sort of self-selection bias there. And the other thing, too, is like there's so much on the internet and there's no matter what you're trying to do. There's a million paths for how to get there. And if you get a course and you just get one, then you're kind of like OK, I'm committed to this way of doing it, rather than listening to all the noise. And that doesn't mean that way is necessarily right or necessarily the best way, but at least you've made a decision made a decision.

J.R.: 26:51

I think that's a good psychological behavior thing is, if you want someone to buy into something like what they literally buy into it, they're more committed to that route, like you're saying. And so it's like free advice versus if you charge someone for consulting, they're going to take your advice more seriously because they paid you money.

Lindsey: 27:05

Yeah, that's why I never gave away coaching for free because I wanted people to take it seriously. It wasn't because I was like, oh, I need to grab money. It was because I wanted people to like, actually take it seriously.

J.R.: 27:16

I want to ask you before we move on to personal finance, because that's the juicy part that I want to get to. But you mentioned negotiating. Well, I guess this is finance right Negotiating a 50% increase in compensation in one year. Could you tell us a story of how that happens and some tips or advice when negotiating increases in compensation that you could share with the audience.

Lindsey: 27:38

So I took a course for that. That was from Save my Sense. She's on Instagram. She is amazing. Her name is Shang Sheng. I don't remember how she pronounced her name. I'm sorry, she actually lives in Irvine. But, yeah, I took her course. But I also had read a lot of negotiation books and oh, ramit Sethi's. He has like a negotiation thing online. I think you told me about his book maybe.

J.R.: 28:00

Yeah, I'm a huge fan.

Lindsey: 28:01

Oh my gosh, I Will Teach you To Be Rich is the only book you need to read for personal finance.

J.R.: 28:05

Anyway, thank you, lindsay. I've been throwing that out there.

Lindsey: 28:08

It's the only one you need to read, and I've read a lot. I've probably read like two dozen, yeah. So I took her course because I knew that I was being underpaid. So first I asked some of my coworkers that are doing the same job or similar job. I was like how much are you getting paid? And I found out that I was being paid less than somebody with less experience than me and I was like that's not cool.

Lindsey: 28:29

So yeah yeah, totally, but I was also a contractor anyway. So I had a little bit more wiggle room because I was a contractor. So I go to my boss and I'm like, hey, like I've gotten a lot more responsibilities lately and I had them listed out too, excuse me. And so went to my boss and I basically used the script from Ramit and was like, can we talk about a compensation adjustment? And my boss was like super open to it. She was like yeah, I think that makes sense. So she had me do a write-up of what my original responsibilities were, what my increased responsibilities have been. And then what I also did was I was like this is how much money I've directly made for the company and all of my accomplishments thus far. I had been in the role for maybe only nine months and I said what my compensation expectations were. I even added a little bit more because I talked to one of my other friends and she told me how much money she was making and she had the same level of experience as me. And I was like, oh, okay, I'm going to add three more dollars an hour. And I got it. They like didn't even negotiate with me. They were just like yep, cool and I was like, okay, great.

Lindsey: 29:34

But then a few months later I had I got a job offer from a competitor and the job seemed good. It was for a better company. It was like a $10 an hour raise and then, remember, I was a contractor, so $10 an hour is like 20 grand a year. So I was really torn because I really liked my job. But this job also sounded really cool. It seemed like it was going to be good for my career.

Lindsey: 29:59

So I talked to my boss and I was like I'm not sure what to do here. What can you do? Long story short, I ended up actually going to that other job and I was there for a couple of days and I was like, oh my gosh, this place sucks. All my coworkers were talking crap about each other. The role was like completely undefined, my boss was like unavailable and I was like this sucks. So I called my old boss and I was like, hey, I think I made a mistake. She's like, okay, I'll see what I can do. So anyway, I get a full-time job offer and it was like a much higher salary and, all in all, between what I had originally been getting paid there and what I got when I went back to the company. It was probably about a 50% raise.

J.R.: 30:43

Dang, that's crazy.

Lindsey: 30:45

Yeah, I felt like the prettiest girl at the dance.

J.R.: 30:48

So I'm hearing and correct me if I'm wrong doing research and knowing your market rates and if you can find out how much other people are getting paid similar levels of experience or fields, etc. That I'm hearing is there's always that concept of I had a guest on the show who says like when you move jobs, you can increase your salary exponentially, as opposed to staying at a company for a year, get a 3% increase and do that for four years or five years when you jump around you. Naturally it's more advantageous to leapfrog that way in terms of compensation. So it seems like both things happened for you. Is there anything else do you feel like lended to that or other things that people can consider if they want to increase their income?

Lindsey: 31:35

Absolutely. I think tracking your accomplishments throughout the time at your job always Something I learned as a recruiter that I've definitely taken with me is just track what you made the company, so any money you directly made for the company, maybe money that you saved for the company, so made saved or achieved achievements. So any job role is going to fall into at least one of those three categories and being able to track those are really the only thing your boss cares about. Like, your boss will not care. The company does not care that you need more money If you say like oh, my expenses have increased inflation like boo-hoo, so is it for everybody else. What did you do for the company?

J.R.: 32:13

Yeah, that's the other thing too is it's nice when your role is close to money, for example sales. It's very easy to be like, yeah, I X revenue for the last year or so, right. But there are those roles that are further removed from the sale, I don't know. Let's say software development, right, or something even further down the line like administrative work. You can't really put a dollar amount to that, but I think the point still stands if you can track the value add.

J.R.: 32:40

This is actually something that I mentioned to Clark when he was on the episode, because I learned this from him. He's very spreadsheets organized and he told me like early on when I worked, there is like always track the things that you do for the company, of course, if you can put it in dollar amounts, but also just like keeping track of what you've done. And then when you come to negotiations, that's more powerful than just being, like you said, oh, inflation, and oh, it's been a year, please give me my extra money, right. It's a better argument to say, here's exactly what I've done over the past year, here's what I've achieved, here's what I've gone beyond the expectations, et cetera, and that's going to give you a better advantage in that negotiation.

Lindsey: 33:18

Yeah, that's great advice from Clark.

J.R.: 33:20

Yeah, that advice paid dividends for a long time. So shout out to Clark again. I bet it still is. Yeah for sure, and I always give people the same advice. Okay, personal finance, let's get into it. Why is it so important to you? To anyone it might be self-evident, but I'm curious if you had another perspective or what you wanted to phrase.

Lindsey: 33:40

It's so important to me because money is something that, honestly, shouldn't matter, like it's not the most important thing, is something that honestly, shouldn't matter, like it's not the most important thing. However, if you have it and you feel comfortable with it, it makes everything else a little bit easier and you can focus on what really matters, like your family or your relationships or your health or whatever.

J.R.: 34:02

As a personal finance enthusiast coach money coach, investment coach what are some things that you were surprised to learn about as you were learning about personal finance?

Lindsey: 34:13

The thing that comes to mind most is this was far before I was interested in personal finance.

Lindsey: 34:20

I was lucky enough that my parents, particularly my mom, taught me a lot about personal finance and money when I was growing up, and the thing she told me all the time I swear I'm going to get to the answer to this question the thing she told me all the time was pay off your credit card in full and on time every month. And I was like mom everyone knows that, but like I got to college and I remember my roommate saying that her parents told her that you shouldn't pay off your credit card every month because it would make your credit score go down. And to this day, that just makes me cringe so much because, first of all, it's wrong. Second of all, it's so damaging to, I think, particularly people who don't have a lot of financial literacy and so therefore may not have a good grasp on their money, regardless of how much they make. And I just I hate that that's a myth because it makes credit card companies rich, not people.

J.R.: 35:24

It's funny you say that because I learned the same thing. Okay, I didn't learn the same thing from my mom, but I found out later on. I learned from my econ teacher in high school. She's like, yeah, I pay off my credit card every month, and so that was my first introduction into how credit works. And so I was like, okay, I'll do that. And then later on, after I started getting into finance, I was like wait, mom, why would you not pay it off each month? And she had the same misconception, so it's not on her. It was just like the lack of education that goes around. So you're right, I think that was a common thing that people just get wrong.

Lindsey: 35:57

Yeah, because it's not. I mean, what's more important to you? Your credit score or how much money you're paying a credit card company for no reason?

J.R.: 36:09

Are there any general approaches, strategies or mindsets that you think are helpful? When approaching this topic, I do want to get into a lot more tactical things like what people can do, but just starting off with general approaches or strategies you think are helpful, the biggest overarching thing is spend less than you make.

Lindsey: 36:24

I know that's not easy for everyone, but if you can master that, if you can spend less than you make and invest the difference, you'll be fine.

J.R.: 36:35

I got that from Personal.

Lindsey: 36:37

Finance Club, by the way. I mean I always said that, but that's like their whole thing.

J.R.: 36:41

So shout out to Personal Finance Club. There's this author who has been doing money for 30, 40 years and it's the same thing, which is spend less than you make, invest and save the difference, etc. And another little caveat is the reason why you don't have more saved up is the difference between you and your ego. If you had less of an ego with money meaning you feel so compelled to spend money and you can just lower your ego so that you don't feel a need to buy those material things you would have a lot more in savings and or investing Something along the lines.

Lindsey: 37:16

I actually think that is also a common misconception about why people don't have a lot of money. I think a lot of people, particularly millennials I don't know about Gen Z, but particularly millennials are like oh, I don't know, I like don't spend a lot of money on things, like I don't buy expensive clothes or go on fancy vacations, and they think that, like, buying expensive things is what is where all their money goes. But really, what I've found with millennials is the thing that really eats them alive is eating out. If you actually track how much money you're spending on eating out or like DoorDash or other convenience things, or buying things from, like Instagram ads, slash, amazon or whatever, that is where I've seen most people spend a lot of their money.

Lindsey: 38:09

Additionally, I also don't think I think everybody thinks I need to save more money. I need to save more money. Well, yes, you do, but it's really. You need to invest the money, you need to help it grow. And the reason that you need to invest the money you need to help it grow and the reason that you need to do that is not just to make more money, but because, if you have a saving account, inflation is eating your money. So what inflation does is it takes away.

Lindsey: 38:36

I think on average over the past 40 years it's been like three percent, and inflation is a huge buzzword right now. But what inflation does in essence is makes it so that if you have a100 in your savings account and right now that could buy you a TV, in one year you'll have to have $103 to buy a TV and in another year you'll have to have $106 and some change because it's going to compound on each other anyway. So if you don't invest, you're, if you just keep your money in a savings account, you're still losing money. So I think something that kept me from investing was I was like, oh, like I'm scared to lose my money, but like I'm gonna lose it in the bank anyway, and that was was when I was like oh shit, let me just start investing.

J.R.: 39:23

Yeah, I like you mentioned that. And now it brings up another element to this because, depending on their stage in personal finance, it determines their strategy at that point. Because what you're mentioning is someone who's, let's say, they're good with money and they are saving money, which is great, and their expenses-ish are low, given they don't eat out too much or whatever, but they're like how do I get to that next step of increasing my net worth and having a six-figure net worth, or something like that, and like what you're saying, you have to find smart ways to invest your money or put it in the right places so that it can grow without you thinking about it, and basically just investing right, so not taking a step back. For people who aren't even at that point yet. When I do some financial coaching with friends, it's like some of them might be in heavy credit card debt and or student loan debt and obviously their investing is they're not in that stage yet. Let's say, they don't have a bunch of loans or credit card debt, but they just don't have a handle on their spending.

J.R.: 40:24

And so another key thing that I tell people is you need to visualize and track everything. It's like when you're trying to go on a nutrition journey or you're trying to lose weight or whatever you're trying to do, step one is always to visualize and track everything to see, make everything transparent, because how can you know where your money's going if you don't need? Or how can you do better with your money if you don't even know where it's going? Same thing with your nutrition. It's like how can you say I'm doing all the right things and I'm not losing weight? Well, do you know how much you're eating? And so that's usually the step before that is get some sort of well.

J.R.: 40:55

I used to recommend Mint, but now they imploded. But some sort of financial tracking app or you can do a spreadsheet, like what Lindsay said, like you used to send out like a spreadsheet, and it's so easy. You just put in expenses, income etc, and it's the same thing. You don't need a fancy software. But I think, for I have a lot of friends who don't even have that step down. They're in the. I have some credit card debt and maybe I need to get rid of that, but I also don't even know what my money's doing. I just have money coming in and then I have money coming out and it's kind of like in the air and I'm like well, there's your problem. You need to visualize it, because how can you budget it if you don't even know where it's going?

Lindsey: 41:28

100%. You have to know where you're starting from. It's like trying to use Google Maps, but Google Maps like doesn't know where you are. So how is it going to tell you to get to where you want to go if you don't know where you are?

J.R.: 41:40

Yeah, exactly. Do you have any thoughts or tips on, let's just say, budgeting? So in the example of okay, I don't have fancy cars and I don't really go on vacations, but why do I still feel like I don't have enough money? And then they try to focus on getting a higher paying job. But it's like, even if that you and I both know even if you have a high paying job, you can have high expenses, so it doesn't mean you're actually going to have any real net worth. But that aside, for the normal person or an average person situation, how should they approach budgeting or, I don't know, patching up the leaky hole in their bucket?

Lindsey: 42:14

Oh, 100% Starting with what you said, marlo is figuring out where all their money's going. I recommend doing it on a spreadsheet, not even an app, because it forces you to go through every single transaction that you've had and you have to do it. You have to look at it and for a lot of people they're like oh, like that's so much anxiety and I'm like well, do you have more anxiety when you're thinking about I'm losing all this money but I don't know. So filling out a spreadsheet that tracks all your spending and income over the past three months and then comparing it, seeing where your leaks are, but also thinking about what's important to you. So when you're thinking about your life priorities, what's important For me it's health, it's my faith in God, it's my family. Those are, like my top three priorities. Oh and yeah, I already said health.

Lindsey: 43:14

So your money is a reflection of your priorities and you're kind of voting with your dollars. You know how people do that with small business or whatever. You're doing that with your own money. So if you say that relationships are important to me, then maybe restaurants is like a higher thing on your budget list because you go to a lot of restaurants with your friends. But and let's say that you're spending a ton of money on, like, a gym membership but you never go and health maybe isn't that important to you, which is fine, but maybe taking that off your list. So I haven't found that like really strict budgeting. Oh, I'm going to spend $200 here, $400 there. I haven't found that that's very effective because it's very difficult to do and things always come up. I find what's more effective is getting your priorities straight and kind of seeing maybe what one or two categories I can spend less in to start patching up these holes because they don't meet my priorities.

J.R.: 44:22

Definitely Two references psychology of money and again Rumi said these I'll teach you to be rich. I think what you're mentioning is something conscious spending, something I lean heavily into. It's like a form of budgeting, but it's what Lindsay just said, which is figuring out what's important to you. Spending a lot on that, cutting back mercilessly on things that are not important to you and that will give you more bang for your buck On top of that money, is very emotional, because one budgeting thing or how people spend their money is not gonna be the same for each person. So you have to make decisions that feel good to you and feel right for you. It's not just oh, give me your checkbook and I'll show you exactly how to spend. No, that's not. You need to know what works for you and your situation and what feels right. So I think, don't undercut the emotional side of money too.

Lindsey: 45:11

So yeah, you know what lives rent free in my head that I've never told you, marlo, I remember we had like first met and we were talking about money, which is looking back. It's so funny that we were doing that.

J.R.: 45:23

Normal conversation.

Lindsey: 45:24

Normal conversation and I remember you saying like, oh yeah, my education budget is unlimited, I'll spend as much as it takes on that. And then you said there was another budget that you had that was very limited and I was like, huh, an unlimited budget in any category. I guess education is useful and I've thought it's lived rent free in my head ever since. And that's like why I spent so much money on educating myself, particularly in business, was because I was like this always pays off in very tangible ways Nice, I love that.

J.R.: 46:01

Thank you for telling me that, Because I see it now that you say that I always saw education as an investment. And if you knew the ROI of investment was good, why would you not invest into it? And so me, being my just out of college early 20s self, I'm like I obviously want to be filthy rich. So how do I get there? It's aside from just picking stocks, it's investing into myself. So I think that get there, it's aside from just picking stocks, it's investing into myself. So I think that's where that mindset came from was obviously I need to grow my knowledge, my skill set, so I need to invest. So my mindset was obviously I don't have unlimited money, but the point was it's very important to me, so I will throw it in if I feel like it's worth it. Obviously, I don't make reckless financial decisions. I'm not buying every single course out there, but I'm glad to hear that because that still is true for me today. I'm like it's education, it's investment to myself, definitely worth it.

Lindsey: 46:53

For reference, that conversation, just so everybody knows, was like nine years ago, so it was that impactful.

J.R.: 46:59

Nice, Compounded, compounded. See this way. We have something like this, like this show, just sharing information. It could impact someone for years to come right. My last question on this topic was how does one achieve a 100k net worth by the age of 26 or recently after college, and why net worth versus income?

Lindsey: 47:16

Okay, can I be honest? The way to do it is just to have rich parents.

J.R.: 47:22

Thanks, Lindsay so helpful. Let me just go find new parents and just become rich. Let's scrap this one.

Lindsey: 47:30

Let's just scrap it, no, but so I mean honestly the reason I did it. I had a lot of privilege, like my parents did pay for me to go to school. I worked in school as well and I got scholarships, but my parents paid for it for the most part, and so that's how I was able to start, because I wasn't in a hole. However, I also made looking back for being like 22 years old, even in college I was very wise with my finances. I never went into credit card debt because I was always like working and keeping and not spending a ton.

Lindsey: 48:10

I lived with roommates all throughout my 20s. I don't know if that's it feels very normal for people here in Southern California to do, but I always I mean I lived with people. I lived with at least three other girls for five years after college before I got married, and then I invested and I honestly didn't spend a lot of money, like I didn't have credit card debt or student loans to pay. So it was a mixture of privilege but also being relatively wise with my money and investing was honestly the biggest part of it.

J.R.: 48:48

Nice, cool. Well, if you don't have rich parents, like Lindsay, the least you could do is invest in learning as soon as you can compound that information right?

Lindsey: 48:59

Yeah, they're not rich for their record, but it was a funny joke. But this episode sucks now.

J.R.: 49:04

No, no, no, it's all good. I liked it. Okay, I just want to be cognizant of time. Are you okay with time?

Lindsey: 49:09

Yeah, I have had more minutes.

J.R.: 49:10

Okay, cool, then it's super rapid fire. Then First question, billboard question. If you could put up a sign for millions of people to see?

Lindsey: 49:36

non-commercial, what would it say? Metaphorical? I've been thinking about this question ever since I read it on your list and I was hoping that you weren't going to ask out. Cooking also saves your health, because you know you're not eating out all this food, that you don't know what's in it or whatever, and it builds your confidence. So learn how to cook something.

J.R.: 49:53

If you could redo one thing, what would you do differently? Or if you could give your younger self advice, what would that be?

Lindsey: 49:59

I honestly wish I would have taken myself a little bit less seriously in my 20s no-transcript you've ever made in either time money, energy, et cetera. Cop out answer. But that course that I got for.

J.R.: 50:39

That helped you start your financial business, that one actually, yeah yep, that one okay, since you're a money person, favorite recent purchase a relatively cheap purchase that has impacted your life the most in the last six months. Six months, relatively cheap time frame. Could be different, just basically a relatively cheap purchase that you're like. This added value to my life you know what?

Lindsey: 51:02

the book for Dummies. I bought that in like 2018 or 2019. And that is where I got that thing about inflationating your money and that's what kicked me in the butt to start investing and also taught me about index funds and that has paid for itself so many times over and it was like maybe $10 or $20.

J.R.: 51:28

Dang. Now that you talk about investing, I wish we could have gotten into index funds and all that stuff. Well, part two, if it works out, last rapid fire favorite books, movies, videos, articles or any media that you share or recommend the most.

Lindsey: 51:37

There's this book. I think I told you about it before. It's called Off to Be the Wizard. You can link it in the show notes. Scott Meyer is the author. It is so good and nobody has watched it. I mean, nobody's listened to it or read it. It's so good. Also, travelers on Netflix. Nobody's watched that show and it's like one of my favorite shows of all time and I don't know why it's not popular.

J.R.: 52:02

How far have you gotten in this year? Have you read every book in the Off to Be the Wizard series?

Lindsey: 52:07

Yeah, I read every one, but the first one is by far the best.

J.R.: 52:10

Well, for sure, yeah, I was gonna say because I think I've read every one too and yeah, it's so good.

Lindsey: 52:15

Because it's so good it's so good, it's a good rec.

J.R.: 52:19

Cool, all right, we've made it to the end again. A super rapid fire. I think we definitely need a part two eventually.

Lindsey: 52:25

But ending questions, so life, giving me life and also my in-laws who watch my baby during the day while I work, and they're just so helpful, so shout out to all of them.

J.R.: 52:56

That's so nice. Do you have any final ask from the audience or any final takeaways you'd like them to have from this conversation?

Lindsey: 53:03

Wait, oh my gosh. I'm such a terrible person. I forgot to thank Jesus for saving my life.

J.R.: 53:11

You know everyone else. There's this guy named Jesus, you know he's okay. He's crying in the corner.

Lindsey: 53:17

He's like poor Jesus. I'm sorry, what was your last question?

J.R.: 53:21

Any final ask from the audience or any final takeaways you'd like them to have.

Lindsey: 53:26

I Will Teach you To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. It's the only book you're going to need to actually get rich. Also, jesus, if you're thinking about it.

J.R.: 53:36

Money, jesus, yeah, package deals. Jesus is more important, but Jesus is like finally, I got that shout out, I got the priority ranking.

Lindsey: 53:44

I got that shout out I got the priority ranking.

J.R.: 53:45

I got that shout out. Cool. All right, Lindsay, thank you. Where can people find you if they want to check out what you're up to or connect or anything like that? I know you're not really on social media anymore, but do you have any places people could find you?

Lindsey: 53:57

Yeah, people can email me. You can just send them. Yeah, you can LinkedIn me as well. I'm on LinkedIn. You can just look up my first and last name. I should be there smiling at you.

J.R.: 54:08

All right, I'll link that as well. Yeah, cool, all right, lindsay. Thank you so much again. I appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time. I know you have a busy schedule, having a baby and everything and married life. Yeah, it's, we definitely need to catch up soon, since it's been a while. But I'll do my final sign off. So thank you guys for being here. I really appreciate it. Be sure to like, follow, subscribe everything else. Leave Lindsay love in the comments and a reminder to always be kind to other people, especially yourself, and remember that you can always learn something from someone if you take the time to listen. So thank you for being here. You.